Sustainable Packaging
Industry Experts discuss all the new materials and ways that packaging can be more sustainable and how we can do our parts to help recycle and reuse. Sustainable Packaging is and will continue to affect us all in our daily lives. We have lots of fun and get down to the real data of what's working to help our planet!
Sustainable Packaging
$5M in Funding From USDA / Clemson for specialty crops exporting (Dr. Andrew Hurley and Dr. James Sternberg)
URGENT DEADLINE is February 12, 2025
APPLY HERE: https://www.clemson.edu/centers-institutes/fresh/innovation/index.html
Do you ship or have any innovations to ship any of these crops? Check this list:
https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/grants/scbgp/specialty-crop
Thank you Dr. Andrew Hurley https://www.linkedin.com/in/drandrewhurley/
and Dr. James Sternberg https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-sternberg-b5615831/
Check out our sponsor Orora Packaging Solutions
https://ororapackagingsolutions.com/
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https://ecoimpact.trayak.com/trial-registration
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/
I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.
This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.
Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. My co host is out today ill, a shout out to Brodie Vander Dussen . We have an exciting episode today that if you're an innovator in the world of sustainable packaging, you should listen up because this pertains to you and it pertains to you quickly. You need to apply. We have some very large amounts of funding from the USDA to help you with your sustainable. Packaging initiative or idea or product, but I'll let these 2 brilliant people tell us about that. we've got Dr Andrew Hurley and James Sternberg from Clemson University. can you guys tell us about yourselves before we get too far?
Dr. James Sternberg:Sure. as you mentioned, my name is James Sternberg. I am a assistant professor here at Clemson University and sustainable packaging. And, my background is in material science. And, bio based, polymers, and recycling techniques, and, this, this project grew out of, some of my, experience in relationships with, sustainable packaging and sustainable packaging research. So I teach classes here on sustainability, as well as in kind of some material science kind of applications as well. I
Cory Connors:love that there are sustainable packaging professors now. this is not something that I had when I was growing up in the world of, education. Yeah. So this is very cool to hear. Dr. Hurley, you're next.
Dr Andrew Hurley:Yeah, absolutely. It's great to work with Dr. Sternberg, in the, and Clemson is, benefits a lot by having an expert in sustainability, in our program. I'm Andrew Hurley. I'm a professor, in food nutrition and packaging sciences, and I'm also the research director at Clemson Fresh. And so it's a hub, a conduit on Clemson's campus to connect everyone across the food value chain. And specifically, and what we're talking about today is a collaboration that's going on at Clemson, even at a global level to really address issues that are present for many U. S. producers in the world for specialty crops, and they're not resolved. We could be in a pickle. laws in Europe and Canada have put. Parameters on packaging for which we don't really have a strong domestic supply to support. And so I'm really excited to be here to talk about, connecting everybody, bringing them together to find all types of solutions for lies ahead.
Cory Connors:That's it. That's it. it's a connection issue. it's people often say it's an education issue, but I think it's more of a. Hey, this person knows how to do this. That person knows how to do that. And we, these two people need to get together. And they could solve this problem. I think you're exactly right. And that's why this fund is so exciting. So we have some exciting news. The USDA is giving you all a whole bunch of money to hand out to people that are worthy of this. And I'd really like to hear how that process works. Can we talk that through?
Dr. James Sternberg:Sure, Andrew. Do you want to start?
Dr Andrew Hurley:Yeah, like, like I said that, the issues that are present is that specialty crops, making the crops that we're producing this country being able to export them into Canada and, Europe are of primary concern. So there's laws that are coming into play that are requiring us to change the way that we specify our packaging. and organize that and so happy to be here with the P. I. on this grant, James Sternberg, who can help walk us through, really, how to get access to this and where the critical points are that we're focused on and being able to resolve.
Dr. James Sternberg:That's right. so I will share now, a survey of some of these new regulations, that are coming into effect from Canada. for having me. in Europe, many of you may be familiar with, PPWR, the plastic and plastic waste, reduction, regulations, in Europe. And then Canada has, they're not as far along in terms of their litigation, so some of that is still up in the air, but I can still show some of, what's been said about, packaging in, in, in their country. But. so the European regulations really look at, basically increasing recycle content, and food packaging. it looks at making things more reusable. and getting away from 1 time use plastics. there's also a component of composed ability. so they wanna increase compostables, especially for, PLU labels. And, and each member state is actually gonna be able to vote on, how, what their compostable, regulations are. So some of them, some states will, that have a lot of composting infrastructure, will want compostable packaging. Others that don't have that infrastructure probably won't go that way. but. as you look at this, you can tell there's, there's just this emphasis of getting away from one time use packaging that can't be recycled or can't be used again in any way. so along that theme, there's all these different kind of formats that are going to be disallowed or rejected. they want to minimize the packaging. if you're trying to, create a better look or create a bigger package that there's more content in there or something, they want to get rid of that. They want to get rid of films and shrink wrap, and I think 1 of the most challenging ones, at least from what we've been talking with, people in the spaces, getting rid of this 3rd 1 here. Nets bags and trays for, any item less than 1. 5 kilograms. That, that means going to bulk. bulk packaging formats, and it brings in another part of this. Grant opportunity, which is coatings, antimicrobials, modified atmosphere, even maybe, although if you don't have a package, it's hard to do that. But that sort of maybe some, outside the box solutions for when you do have to, ship in bulk and ship without individual packaging. You can see some of these other ones are for hospitality and restaurants, but there's also obviously a provision on PFAS. to get below the thresholds, which are very low. Right? so it's not like they're encouraging PFAS or allowing it, but, these are, below the, the limits that would basically be if it accidentally touch something with PFAS or something like that. So they want to get rid of PFAS, but there is some threshold that they'll allow. and then. here's some examples that we we're thinking about in the beginning with, what. or would be some of the innovations that are needed here. So you can think about clamshells and enclosures that would have been made out of PVC or polystyrene. those are going to be essentially eliminated nets, bags and trays, needing to get more bulk transport or separating into some kind of a bin system. labeling is another big 1 compostable labels, and then increasing PCR, that's a global. Thing, that they've got these, these new, basically quotas or targets set that they want to increase PCR, by certain dates. in Canada. That's the environmental and climate change, Canada regulations. They're very similar. you can see, Canada actually started out, With wanting to ban all plastic, but it's been walked back a little bit because they actually visited some, Some industries and some applications and realize how difficult that would be to ban all plastic and what the implications of that would be. So you can see here again. It's. It's increasing PCR content. It's creating reusable or compostable materials. it's get getting rid of plastic in certain cases for fruits and vegetables, or one time used plastic at least. and then making things more recyclable. very similar, very similar, trends, among, among Canada and Europe.
Cory Connors:And when you say PCR, you mean post-consumer recycled. Material that's correct. Yes.
Dr. James Sternberg:Yeah. Yeah. So increasing the amount of post consumer recycled material in the packaging.
Cory Connors:We just want to be very clear. I know most of the people listening to the show will understand that, but it's important that we, I always try to, expand those acronyms. this sounds like, They, I think they dodged a bullet with the, not trying to do the band because that was tried in France and it was quickly rolled back because people said, well, I can't ship these products and consumer said, I still want my products and I still need this food and do you need to provide it to me? Because I want it so until there's an actual 100 percent 1 to 1, plastic replacement, which maybe you'll find during this study and during this funding campaign, we won't be able to totally eliminate plastic. so this is really great. Dr Hurley, do you want to expand on any of that? what Dr Sternberg said?
Dr Andrew Hurley:Yeah, I do. I want to talk about, what, who this might be important for. And, specifically, I wanted just to call out, if you're listening to this, if you're a packaging manufacturer, if you're a packaging distributor, if you are, touching packaging and distributing it out there into the world, you're You qualify for this. you likely have R and D projects, that might be accelerated through funding. there's a lot of opportunities there. If you understand the packaging supply chain. I also believe that producers who are exporting products, you should be. Concerned about this to the point where you're really thinking about your portfolio and how you're being able to match all of your skews with appropriate export ready packaging solutions. And so you would actually qualify for this funding as well, because you likely have a team and people that you're working with and distributors and manufacturers and producers that are helping you out to get your products out the door. And so you qualify here because I think that proposals, from, like an end user, as well as a packaging company will actually come across to be very strong because you'll be able to deploy that solution, which is a big part of the grant is making sure we're able to take these technologies and implement them and integrate them. And so if you are producing packaging or you are buying packaging, you, should, should really consider this opportunity to, get export ready.
Cory Connors:And that's exciting, and there's a sense of urgency here that I can feel when we're talking about this, because we have a specific timeline, right? We only have till February. Is it middle of February to apply? It's correct. February 12th. okay, if you're listening, February 12th is your deadline and you need to apply right away. sense of urgency check. Now, let's talk about, Where do they go to apply? How, what's the process? Is there a, I'll include whatever link that you tell me to in the show notes for the podcast. But, can you tell us what's the process? How does it work?
Dr Andrew Hurley:Sure. no, James, you don't mind. I don't know if you could pull up a browser, but I'd love you to go to Clemson dot edu slash fresh. So that's all you got to remember is Clemson dot edu slash fresh. And, it'll pull up our site. And on that site, you'll see a variety of options that you can click on. 1 of those to check out is the 1st thing on there is the sustainable packaging innovation lab, which will, which gives you the information that you need. But also want to make you aware that next to that is a summit. We actually have an annual summit. We'll be bringing people together to talk about these technologies funded. And, in March of next year. So definitely check that out. And our compostability services, but right up there, if you click on the sustainable packaging, innovation lab, you'll see the 5Million in funding are key areas and a giant orange button that says apply for funding. All you got to do is click on that. And if you're wondering, like, well, does my. This is my product qualified. Well, there's a hyperlink there for specialty crops. And it's interesting to look at, how that's defined. There are a lot of products out there on the market. And then once you can confirm that, you're working with the right product, there are different tracks. That are available to you, and so if on that site, it'll say proposal tracks, and then you can see track 1 and 2, James, any, can you provide like, your perspective, to quickly summarize the differences between track 1 and track 3.
Dr. James Sternberg:Sure, yeah, these, the projects that are desired are very applied as you can imagine. So we're not really looking for fundamental research or just laboratory research. the proposals that are desired are those that are either, demonstrating a pilot, and a commercial ready product or something that will get to that state. And so that's what track 1 is. track 1 is for, basically. Rnd to get to the pilot stage, so if you have a product that has. Or a, an idea or possibly something in research that is not quite ready, to do a pilot or a manufacturing pilot to demonstrate, the manufacturability on a large scale, but you need, you think you're very close to getting to that level within maybe one, one year or two years. Then that's what track one is all about. Track 3 is, pilot projects themselves. So if you need money to, I don't believe there's any restriction on this money. We haven't heard anything from the USDA that says you can't buy equipment and a lot of grant funding. it's hard to buy equipment off, but. I think, the USDA would be very interested in, and supporting projects, that if you need to buy equipment or manufacturing, scale up equipment to, to demonstrate a pilot project, that would certainly be. Interesting to them, and then you might be wondering what's track 2. I was going to ask, yeah, is that for podcasters only? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. The interesting thing is, the interna, the foundation for fresh produce, and the inter, which is the, I guess the, parent company or parent organization for the International Fresh Produce Association. They were also given 5 million in funding.. To support projects. And so they will, their track two will be an accelerator program. Working, you'll enter their, they have an existing accelerator program and so you'll enter that program and go through it and it's, it's geared towards marketing and getting your product ready for commercial applications. It's a little bit similar to our track 3, you might say, well, what's the difference between track 2 and track 3? Well, track 3 is for companies or organizations that don't really want to go through the accelerator or already have a sort of a brand name or a commercialization path that's already there. So they don't really need the accelerator path, but they still obviously need to run pilot and scale up projects. So that's the difference between track 2 and track 3. but. There's 1, there's 1 application process. If I, you guys can all see the screen now. Correct? Yes. If we go here, I go apply for funding. It's going to take you here to the foundation for food and agricultural research. They are hosting. The proposal process, because they're very good at this, and so here again is, More information about the lab and then you can click here to download the full RFA and you can read through it and I'll be happy to take you through a little bit of this in a moment. What's an
Cory Connors:RFA
Dr. James Sternberg:requests for applications
Cory Connors:for application? Okay.
Dr. James Sternberg:Yeah, RFA RFP request for proposals. So that document will have all of the specifics that we can talk about in a moment about what needs to be in your application and all that kind of thing. This website here, this is where you'll start your application and this is where you'll submit your application. So they, the FAR will be hosting this proposal submission process, and they're going to be facilitating the review. it's these proposals will not just go to us or to USDA. They're going to go out to external review and be reviewed by experts in the field. And then they'll come back with their suggestions for funding. that's a little bit about, the process and what we're looking for, in, in terms of, in terms of proposals.
Cory Connors:This is exciting. It's an exciting opportunity, for companies that are struggling to move forward with their innovation, for this kind of materials and coatings and labeling and all of these different things. Things that will make packaging more sustainable for the specialty crops exporting to the world, which is a big deal for farmers. And, my father in law and mother in law, they're farmers and, in Oregon. And we, this may affect them. And this is exciting to see. How companies and people can be a part of the solution. And so I commend you and your teams there at Clemson for taking this initiative and being a part of the USDA program. And so well done. Very exciting. Let's talk a little bit about the time frame. I know there's an urgency to apply. and that's mid February. February 12th. Okay. February 12th is, is the deadline. but after that, when they, is there a schedule for, how long it will take to, to go over all the applications and then when the people will get their funding?
Dr. James Sternberg:That is obviously that'll be a little bit fluid, but we're really looking to distribute funding by spring. April, May timeline. Yeah. And I get projects started, Very quickly, hopefully before summer, and. The, the requirements for, running a project such as this will be pretty, pretty minimal. but, we'll have, we'll, basically. we'll apply like a project manager, a project officer for each project that will check in, with the grantee, maybe once every other month. and then there'll be quarterly reports, that, you'll send in and, There'll be opportunities for no cost extensions. If you need more time, there'll also be opportunities to reapply for funding for another year of funding. So the USDA has also hinted that they would like to expand this. the Sustainable Packaging Innovation Lab. So this, this might be the first round of funding and subsequent rounds of funding. yeah, I would definitely tell companies and people interested to think big, and think long term, and, and really to gear your, applications and that kind of scale.
Cory Connors:Let's talk about that a little bit. What is this, an appropriate request amount? I'm assuming there's no minimum, but is there a maximum amount of funding that each person can try for?
Dr. James Sternberg:In the RFA, we have a 1 year limit of 250k. Okay, so that, that's, that's the limit that we have. I think, you, you certainly can make a case for more. and, everyone will be required to submit a budget and a budget justification and work plan of work and all that kind of thing. so I think if, if the proposal is good enough, I think all proposals will be considered. Let's put it that way. but our sort of initial, limit is 250K per year.
Cory Connors:I think that's good. Yeah, go ahead. Dr.
Dr. James Sternberg:Yeah,
Dr Andrew Hurley:I just wanted to mention that organizing proposals like milestones. So significance can be achieved within these like 250K milestones, but certainly show the bigger picture of how, further investment will lead into adaptation and distribution of the, of the idea.
Cory Connors:That's great advice. if you're applying, if you're listening and you're going to apply, lay it all out there. Put it, tell them exactly what you're trying to accomplish and what you think that will cost long term. because like, like you just said, James, this is, potentially going to be, It's several years, maybe decades of this funding because frankly, that's what it might take to, to be more sustainable in the future. I think, well, it's what it will take and that's why I commend the USDA and you and all involved with this program because it's so important. We're, we have a long ways to go and, but there's some exciting things that are happening. it's, innovative materials, innovative things going on that, I think can change the world for a be for the better. Let's talk about, any other hot tips, any other things that, that you need to, to do if you're applying.
Dr Andrew Hurley:Yeah, I've got one to kick us off with, which is. keep it short, keep it simple and keep things impactful. try it is not trying to fill the minimum page requirements. we would like to have to be as direct as possible and really quantify the impact that you believe in investment can have. And that can be done on a single sheet of paper. if thinking in that realm, I think will hopefully, motivate many to apply for this funding.
Dr. James Sternberg:Yeah, I think what Dr Hurley is referring to is, the, if you want to go through a little bit of the, the application process or what the full proposal will look like. the 1st thing is that, like you said, I think you want to pick your be very specific about your application. What is this packaging going to be used for? What specific specialty crop or crops or and be very clear about that. And, the 1st round of review will be on your 1 page executive summary. And so in that 1 page, you really want to just make it clear the scope of the project, the application. for your attention. so that, it doesn't get filtered off in that 1st round as on, basically. Unapplicable to the program goals, which, I think it's easy. it's easy to do that. I don't think too many will be filtered off, but just to let everybody know the 1st round. We'll be just seeing. Okay. Is this application applicable to the program goals? So that 1st page is important. and then, it's not, you have another 6 pages. so it's not an incredibly lengthy proposal. it's not a 20 or 30 page proposal, which can sometimes be, yeah, we want to know exactly, what your objectives are, what your plan of work is going to be, what the applications are, and then if we go down here. Yeah, you can see here a clear and detailed description of the innovative packaging or packaging alternative materials and their sources must be described with sufficient detail and clarity to allow a meaningful peer review of the application. And then you have all these other documents that are either optional or required and that's self explanatory, but it might be good to look at the review criteria here. the USDA has specified that all proposals must answer some really fundamental questions. And if I can find those questions, are they in the RFA? I think, actually, we may have made these in bullet points here. yeah, The following review criteria here, so relevance to export of specialty crops, novelty or innovation, project strategy and feasibility, technical, scientific merit, commercialization, potential compliance with emergent packaging, the material availability, likely costs, these kinds of things. I would definitely pay attention, to these criteria when you're writing your proposal. and also feel free to reach out to Andrew or I, if you are writing a proposal and you do have questions and you need some guidance, we're here to help you write the most successful proposal possible. because again, we're not gonna be the ones doing the reviewing, so we can help. and, so yeah, we, we. Really, encourage going through this RFA, closely and, following everything in there. Absolutely
Dr Andrew Hurley:just to reiterate that please reach out. Our job is to help you. We want you to get funding as soon as possible and make the largest impact. Possibly can. I wanted to mention 1 other tip is that you should definitely review the things that are not going to be funded. And I believe that's on a different document on it might be in this, but. That is there is actually. Yeah, perfect. So we'll put we can pull that, but there is a list of things that are not going to be funded. So it is important just to make sure to just to go through that list and be aware.
Cory Connors:We can include those in the notes, and we'll talk about those in detail. That's really important to know that we don't want people to waste their time. We don't want people to waste, their efforts here. If it's not an appropriate, scope, then, we'll hope for another program for them someday. But this is really focusing on specialty crops packaging for export from the North America. Is that's correct?
Dr Andrew Hurley:And there's, nine specifics there.
Cory Connors:Great. Well, thank you both. We're excited for this. We are, thankful for you and your teams for making this, possible. I think, I know you're a huge proponents for it. So well done. Thanks again. And, we look forward to catching up on this in the future to see how the program is going and maybe then after it's done, how it went. So maybe we'll do two, two follow up episodes. That would be
Dr. James Sternberg:great. Yeah, we're excited too.
Dr Andrew Hurley:Thank you, Cory.
